Lenskart to invest Rs 60 crore to set up a new facility

Lenskart is also working on strenghthening its offline presence by creating partnerships with large-format retailers and eye-care hospital chains.Varun Jain | ET Bureau | August 25, 2015, 07:10 IST

Lenskart is also working on strenghthening its offline presence by creating partnerships with large-format retailers and eye-care hospital chains.Online eyewear retailer Lenskart will invest about Rs 60 crore to set up a manufacturing facility in the country in the next three to six months, according to a top executive of the company.

The Delhi-based company produces about 5,000 spectacles every day at its plant at Okhla in the national capital.

The proposed 1,00,000 sqft unit, which will help Lenskart ramp up production to almost 40,000 pieces a day, is part of a larger plan to take production up to 2,00,000 pieces in the next two years, said Peyush Bansal, founder and chief executive officer of Lenskart.

“Right now we have a manufacturing facility in Okhla, but we are looking for a much bigger manufacturing facility and planning to consolidate all of them into one,” Bansal said, adding that about two thirds of the proposed investment will be spent on machines and equipment.

Earlier this year, Lenskart raised Rs 135 crore in Series C round of funding led by TPG Growth, with participation from Hong Kong based TR Capital and existing investor IDG Ventures for a significant minority stake.

Currently, we have enough funds to carry out our investment plans and we might look to raise funds sometime next year, said Bansal. The search for a location for the new facility is in the final stages, he said.

According to Bansal, Lenskart is planning to set up more manufacturing facilities in and around the upcoming facility. He did not give any details on the other manufacturing facilities but said they could entail the same kind of investment, if not more.

Lenskart is also working on strengthening its offline presence by creating partnerships with large-format retailers and eye-care hospital chains. It also aims to close this financial year with about 200 physical stores up from 100 at present in more than 60 cities.

“We are entering some large-format stores like Spencer’s Retail and Star Bazaar where we would do eye checkups and take customer orders and deliver the spectacles at home,” said Bansal. “We are also in talks with other big players who operate under the same model and are likely to sign the agreement with some more in a few weeks. They are not into optical business. Now this will be their optical business.”